to the best of our knowledge except through this weak line of transmission and through the report of Jābir that will be cited shortly. Yet that chain too contains narrators whose reliability must be clarified, among them ʿAlī ibn ʿĀṣim. Yazīd ibn Hārūn said, “We have always regarded him as a liar….” He then added, “Had this practice been lawful it would have been conveyed to us, and the early generations—may Allah be pleased with them—would not have overlooked it.”

Later I found a second route for this same narration of Ibn Masʿūd while editing Imām Ismāʿīl al-Qāḍī’s work Faḍl al-Ṣalāt ʿalā al-Nabī ﷺ. I stated there that the chain is ḥasan, and al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Sakhāwī likewise declared it sound in al-Qawl al-Badīʿ fī al-Ṣalāt ʿalā al-Ḥabīb al-Shafīʿ, p. 151 (Indian edition). See Faḍl al-Ṣalāt 37/38 (Islamic Office print) and Irwāʾ 642.

Regarding the ʿĪd sermon, he cites the ḥadīth: “ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Sāʾib said, ‘I attended ʿĪd with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. When he had completed the prayer he said, “We are about to deliver a sermon; whoever wishes to remain for the sermon may remain, and whoever wishes to leave may leave.”’” It was transmitted by al-Nasāʾī, Abū Dāwūd, and Ibn Mājah.

I say: its chain is weak, for Abū Dāwūd, al-Dāraquṭnī, and Ibn Maʿīn all judged it defective on the grounds that it is mursal (missing the Companion link).

Furthermore, it contains Ibn Jurayj, a mudallis, who reports it with an ʿanʿanah.

Even so, the connected version appears stronger to me than the mursal one, and Ibn Jurayj’s ʿanʿanah here does not harm the narration, as I clarified in Irwāʾ 629—consult it. On that basis I included it in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd 1048, and it was also authenticated by al-Ḥākim, al-Dhahabī, and Ibn Khuzaymah (1462). Accordingly, the ḥadīth is sound.